The Mint400 by Jeremiah Staggs

POSTED Mar 24, 2016

Sunday before The MINT 400 we would make our way out to Barstow to do some shock tuning. Getting the car dialed in makes a huge difference. It was a night and day difference over what we had at the last race. Thursday morning we would hit the 15 north towards Las Vegas for the Mint 400. We would arrive around 9:30 to pic out a main pit area and set up. After we set up we would go over and catch some of the qualifying going on in Primm.

Friday morning we would get up early and head into Vegas as the Yxz1000r had to be in the Fierce offroad booth by 7am on Fremont street. Once we got the car dropped off and had some breakfast we would sit in line at registration for a few hours and then get our cool back pack of goodies. We would make our way back down to Fremont street and spend the rest of the day meeting with friends and sponsors, tracking down Cory to get the car tech inspected. When I went over to get our IRC tracker I would learn they were over sold and we would be starting the Mint 400 with no tracker, this was also a shame because it would put down our lap times and have any chance of running for the fast lap award either. At 3:30 pm I would be asked to do a live interview on NBC 3 Las Vegas for there 5:00 news. So we would hang out and talk with the news crew for a bit and then do the live interview, yeah I was nervous but it was a awesome opportunity and I was glad to do it. After the interview we new a storm was coming in so we would load the car and race back to Primm arriving just as the storm was coming in. We would quickly unload the Yamaha and get it into the trailer for some last minute adjustments and checks as the wind,sand and rain would come in.

Sat morning we would get up and stage before sunrise. Starting 32nd we knew we would have alot of work to do, the rain from the night before was awesome and just what we needed to help keep the dust down. First utvs leaving just as the sun broke over the mountains and we would now run the first part of the race going into the sun. The first 20 miles would be brutal with many cars from different classes already broken down. We wanted to pace our self as we knew we had a long rough course and race ahead, coming into remote pit A everything was fine with the car so we just passed by for a visual. Leaving pit road we resumed race speed and started passing many cars across the lake bed sections as the yamaha was killing it on the top speeds, we would make our way through the silt beds, FOX proving grounds, rock quarry and just before remote pit B we hit something super hard and caused us to lose our radio, driving the next 10 miles off of hand signals we would finally get to pit B and the crew would find the wire connector that came loose and get it repaired. Having radio communications again between co-driver and driver we would take off again heading out to complete our first lap and main pit. We would come into main pit on lap one and the crew would give us fuel and check over the car, we would also learn at this time we had started 32 and were 6th by position in class and not sure where by time and with no tracker we had no idea on lap times either. We would leave main pit and start lap two maintaining a good pace and passing more cars we would once again cruise through pit A and head out across the lake beds and silt, coming back in to the FOX proving grounds….. our FOX shocks were soaking up the massive bumps when the frame failed. The shock mounts ripped off and the front end slammed to the ground. I sat on the side of the course in shock. My shocks were blocking my view as watched my 4th place position slip away. My MINT 400 ended sitting trackside watching everyone race by.

Next race we head back to Laughlin where I hope to put the 1982 on the box.